"Afraid?" she asked, frowning, "Why were you afraid to meet?"
Shang flinched like he'd said more than he meant to. He was quiet for a long few minutes and Erena forced herself to be patient, realizing this was probably hard for him.
"Remember what I said before," he asked, "About the authorities finding your planet and turning it into a petri dish? It wouldn't be the first time they've done something like that."
Erena paled in horror. Would the government of so many planets and species really do something like that? Shang had never lied to her before, that she knew of. But it seemed too awful to be real.
"Alright," Shang said after a moment when the silence had lingered too long, "It's your turn. Tell me about earth."
Chapter Eight
They continued to talk while Diamat grew slowly larger in front of them. Erena described earth and growing up there, telling him about her training days, her crew. He asked a few questions, got a little huffy when she mentioned her relationship with Paolo, but for the most part just listened, taking it in.
Erena realized how much she'd needed to talk about it, the home she'd left behind, the friends she would probably never see again. She hadn't really processed it yet in all the madness of the auction and then running away with Shang. Before she knew it she was crying as she described the farm she'd been born on.
"You must really want to go back, huh?" Shang asked, watching her with a strange look in his eye.
"I do," she confessed, scrubbing at her eyes impatiently, "I really do."
"Hm."
He didn't say anything else, but he reached out to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, and Erena smiled gratefully, embarrassed but glad he understood.
Soon they were approaching the atmosphere of Diamat. Up close, Erena could see it was a lot larger than Earth, and appeared to be primarily ocean. She couldn't spot any continents the size she was used to, most of them appearing smaller than Australia.
Primarily, the planet's surface was dotted with thousands of island chains, most of which didn't look very green from up here. Maybe the vegetation here was a different color?
If the sun was more red or blue than Sol, earth's sun, then the plants might have adapted to absorb a different wavelength of light. Or maybe it wouldn't have plants at all. She couldn't rule out that vegetative life might be rarer than they'd thought.
She strapped in, her hands shaking, as Shang prepared to enter orbit.
"Why are you so nervous?" he asked, frowning, "We're just landing."
"This is still probably the most dangerous part of the mission where I'm from," Erena confessed, swallowing hard and gripping the seat.
"What the hell is your species doing exploring deep space if you haven't even mastered takeoff and landing yet?" Shang shook his head in dismay, tilting the nose down and slipping into the atmosphere as gracefully as a fish into water.
They fell towards the surface like a feather on the breeze. Erena could swear the hull hadn't even heated up.
"You're going to have to teach me how you did that," Erena said, dazzled, as they floated towards one of the larger landmasses.
"Yeah right," Shang scoffed, "Last thing I need is the pet alien trying to fly."
"Excuse me? I trained my whole life to fly space craft!"
"Yeah, yeah..."
The ship was soon taxing above what looked to Erena as she stared out the window almost exactly like an average downtown airport. If it weren't for how weird the craft landing on it were and the fact that the buildings here seemed to favor three sides rather than four.
They landed without a bump, Shang muttering credentials to a controller over the ship's coms as they pulled in. They coasted on the magnetic landing gear through wide streets behind a few larger personal craft until they reached the parking garage for Shang's ship class.
He complained bitterly as he went that smaller ships always got to park closer to the airport. His was outfitted to carry cargo, and was thus bigger than most non-commercial craft.
Erena was reminded of the fact that he was a pirate and it caught her temporarily by surprise. She hadn't asked him anything about that yet. She wondered what he would say if she did.
"Oh, hey, take this."
They were about to leave the ship when Shang handed Erena a small disposable package. Inside there was what looked to Erena like a cotton medical mask.
"Put it on," he said, "It'll help you adjust to the atmosphere faster. It can be kind of a shock to the system otherwise."
Erena frowned but put the mask on anyway, seeing that he was doing the same. He opened the doors and the outside air hit Erena like a brick to the face. She dropped to her knees at once, wheezing and swearing.
"Burns like a son of a bitch, right?" Shang commented casually, walking past her.
"I'm gonna die," she replied, eyes tearing up, her lung screaming, "Air!"
"Take deep breaths, Fluffy," Shang rolled his eyes, waiting for her at the bottom of the ramp, "You're not dying."
Erena responded by falling over and blacking out.
"Okay, so, maybe I underestimated what the antihistamines in the mask would do for you alien physiology," Shang hunched his shoulders defensively as they sat in the airport adjustment room, a quiet, soothing pastel yellow lobby full of comfortable seating, while Erena breathed into an oxygen mask and glared at him, "I still say you over reacted. If you hadn't panicked the reaction would have been much milder."
He was sitting beside her on a comfortable padded bench, his arm around her half to help support her and half, Erena thought, to reassure himself.
He'd panicked at least as much as her when she'd passed out. Though she was annoyed with him, she couldn't help being slightly pleased by his concern. A handful of other aliens in the room, also adjusting to the atmosphere, eyed their bickering curiously.
"If you... had properly... prepared me..." Erena wheezed between puffs on the oxygen mask.
"I said I was sorry."
"You did... not."
"I said it while you were passed out."
"That... doesn't...count!"
When she could breathe again, he helped her outside. The air still felt uncomfortable in her lungs, somehow too heavy, leaving her feeling permanently short of breath, but she was getting used to it. But now that they could finally leave the airport, Erena could see the planet properly at last.
"Wow..."
She leaned on Shang for support, staring openly. The wedge shaped buildings, all copper gold and glass, formed strange jig saws as they interlocked, opening up before them to the horizon. There were no plants, as she'd wondered on the way down.
The ground seemed instead to be a semi translucent kind of firm silicon, opalescent and shimmering, occasionally ruptured by strange crystalline forms not unlike trees.
In the far distance, Erena could see crystal mountains glittering in the light, catching the pale blue sunlight reflected off the deep jade colored sea. It was dazzlingly beautiful, almost to the point of hurting Erena's eyes.
"I had a feeling you'd appreciate this."
Erena looked up at Shang as he spoke to see him staring off at the horizon as well, his expression oddly peaceful.
"I grew up in the Labyrinth City," he was saying, "Back on the planet where you were sold. I was raised in the lower levels, where the buildings are so dense you rarely see the sky. When I finally got off planet, this is the first place I came."
"It's incredible," Erena leaned against him, awed, "I guess I didn't really process it before. I'm really on another planet. I'm the first human being to see this."
"Are you going to pass out again?" Shang asked with a frown. Erena laughed.
"No, no, I just wish I could take samples or something!" she shrugged, "If I could just get something back to earth about all this... it would change everything."
Shang looked momentarily troubled, but Erena was more concerned with the view. A handful of what she guessed were children of one species or another were
running down the beach pulling a huge kite shaped like a squid. Its ribbons curled and waved in the air like the real thing. She let go of Shang's arm to hurry towards the beach, eager to investigate.
The alien children let her examine the kite, then showed her where to find tide pools were tiny crystalline crabs, their backs decorated with spires of rose quartz, scurried back and forth snatching at darting, jewel colored fish.
She'd been scrambling over the shore collecting sea shells, transparent but for the iridescent pink nacre that lined them, for nearly an hour before she noticed Shang watching her.
"Where have you been?" she asked, breathless, as she hurried towards him, "I saw the most amazing crustacean-thing! You won't believe how its segments are connected."
"I found us a place to stay," Shang explained, "It's getting late. You wanted that shower, right?"
"Desperately," Erena agreed with a laugh.
Despite her situation, she couldn't help smiling as they walked back through the broad streets towards the hotel Shang had found. The hotel wasn't so different from what Erena had expected.
Although the lobby was a bit strange, the room itself was designed to accommodate bipedal mammalians, and so the furniture and accommodations were very close to what she was used to.
They had difficulty finding the bed at first, until they moved a round wooden lid near the balcony and discovered a pillow lined nest like area. Erena wanted to fall into it immediately, but she didn't want to dirty the sheets.
"You can shower first," Shang offered, "I'll see about dinner."
"Thank you," Erena clasped her hands in gratitude and hurried to the attached bathroom, only to have to return a moment later and ask for help figuring out how to turn on the water. Shang rolled his eyes but showed her how the panel worked.
As she washed, Erena couldn't help thinking how much things had changed since a few days ago. She'd been taken from her ship scared and alone. Now she was on the kind of outer space adventure she'd read stories about as a kid. Seeing incredible new planets, meeting new species.
If she were a dashing space captain like in the stories, she'd probably have fallen in love by now too. She thought of Shang, remembering his face as he'd talked about visiting here for the first time. Well, it wasn't love, but it was something, and it was something exciting.
Chapter Nine
When she left the shower, Shang had dinner waiting for them. The food looked strange, but also beautiful, colorful and artfully plated.
"I sent the kitchen your dietary requirements," Shang assured her as she sat down at the low table in the center of the room on which the food was spread, "So nothing should be dangerous."
"Like how adjusting to the atmosphere wasn't supposed to be that bad?" Erena asked pointedly.
"If you don't want you food, I'll take it," Shang replied with a shrug, reaching for one of the plates near her. She slapped at his hand with the chopstick like utensils they'd been given.
After dinner, which was delicious and didn't kill her, Shang showed her how to open a holographic screen to watch local television. She flipped through channels while he showered, though she found the translator didn't work as effectively on television as it in life.
It didn't help that this planet's story telling methods seemed incredibly nonsensical to her. She had thought Earth plays were hard to follow. These were impossible. Why did the hero (she thought it was the hero anyway) keep trading masks with the chorus?
And she was pretty sure one of the actors had just swapped places with an audience member. At least the music was interesting, if a bit too high pitched.
Lying in the bed, she looked up as the door to the bathroom slid away and Shang returned, trying not to stare too hard. He was still topless, rubbing at his hair with a towel. She could still see moisture running down his chest and it made her throat feel oddly dry.
"You took a liquid shower?" she asked, "I thought that was weird."
Shang shrugged, looking away as though embarrassed.
"They're not so bad," he said, "Sonic is still more thorough."
She smiled, patting the bed to invite him to sit beside her.
"I'm sure you were very thorough," she joked, "Now come explain to me what the heck this movie is about."
"I'm not sure the natives even know," he finished drying off quickly and, still wearing only loose pants, flopped down beside her, "Diamantine dramas are notoriously weird."
"I'm glad it's not just me," she leaned against his side, wondering if he was still willing to do more of what they'd done on the ship, or if he'd decided to pretend that hadn't happened.
He put an arm around her, trailing fingers absentmindedly up and down her side as he watched the strange play progress.
"I think it's about the hero's search for his third progenitor," Shang mused, "But he keeps trading costumes with that other actor."
"I noticed that," Erena eyed him, wondering if it would be too bold of her to go in for a kiss, "I think when he's the actor with the yellow skin, he can only speak the truth, and when he has teal skin he can only lie."
"But he confessed his love to his mates while teal?"
"Only one of them."
"How dramatic."
He was still paying more attention to the screen than her, caught up in what Erena was increasingly certain was the alien equivalent of a soap opera.
"Hey, Shang," she called, finally making him turn to look at her. But she found her words drying up at the thought of just asking him for what she wanted. She changed the subject instead.
"Thank you, for bringing me here," she smiled at him gratefully, "You could have just sold me, or let that insect guy eat me. That you're going to such lengths to help me- It means a lot."
He looked briefly flustered, and glanced away.
"It's not like I'm getting nothing out of it," he muttered, "I told you how valuable you are. It's natural I'd want to hang on to something worth that much."
Erena scoffed.
"Well, in that case," she suggested, pushing on his shoulder to roll him onto his back, "I should probably make sure you get your money’s worth."
He let her roll him over, watching as she climbed over him.
"Well, I'm not going to say no," he chuckled, taking her hips, "But you know you don't have to, right? I don't expect this from you."
"I want to," Erena insisted, rocking her hips against him, "You may have noticed, but I actually kind of like you."
He laughed, a low rumbling chuckle that Erena could feel where her hands touched his chest.
"I kind of like you too, Fluffy."
She bent to kiss him passionately, her blonde hair forming a curtain around them as her tongue slid into the warmth of his mouth, tasting the sharpness of his teeth. His hands tangled in her hair, but a moment later she was pulling away, wriggling down his body between his legs.
"Let me show you something we do on earth," she said with a grin, pulling his pants down his hips.
"I'm pretty sure we do it here too," he said with a smirk, "But go ahead, surprise me."
He wasn't fully hard yet, but she would make sure he would be soon. She ran her fingers along his shaft delicately, just enough to raise him and make it easier to run her tongue along the underside of his shaft.
He tasted clean, like the water he'd just showered in, and that made her all the more eager to engulf him. She forced herself not to anyway, taking her time to tease him and watch his expressions.
He was trying not to show his excitement, keeping his expression cool, but Erena didn't intend to make it easy for him. She could already see the flush on his cheeks that he couldn't hide and she wanted to see more. She took just the tip of his head into her mouth and felt his hips twitch under her hand, fighting the instinct to thrust in. He bit his cheek, his eyes intense as
Erena met his piercing gaze with her own while she pulled back to flick at the underside of his crown again. Still, she couldn't help feeling a bit embarrassed herself when he watched
her with those dark, focused eyes. She decided the best way to win this fight was to make him feel so good he couldn't focus on anything.
She dove without warning, engulfing more than half his length in a single motion. She heard him swear, looking up to see him tossing his head back, his hair catching the light as he shook in unexpected pleasure. She grinned and returned to her efforts, knowing she had won.
She bobbed her head along his shaft, tongue teasing his tip on the off stroke, squeezing the base with his other hand. Her eyes stung as he grew to full hardness and she had to push herself harder to take him all, feeling him bump against the back of her throat.
She watched him as she worked, loving the way his stomach muscles clenched and his lips parted, wet and panting with need. His eyes were hazy and half lidded with desire and she hummed around him with delight, tongue flicking at the head. Suddenly he reached out with a gasp to grab her by the hair.
"That's enough," he panted.
"It's alright," she said with a grin, "I don't mind."
"I mind," he said with a low, lustful growl, "I'm not done with you yet."
He sat up, turning her onto her stomach so that he could pepper the back of her neck with kisses, his teeth grazing her skin. Bent over her, she could feel his chest against her back, hot and heavy and close, weighing her down while his hands kept her hips raised.
His lips and hands made their way down her back with religious patience, worshipping every inch of her skin, leaving little red kiss marks behind like flags to identify the territory he had claimed.
She was already wet, but he didn't hesitate as he reached that part of her to let his tongue delve between her folds, spreading her open and working his way into her.
Erena moaned, clutching the sheets and struggling to hold still as he teased her, getting back at her for playing with him so long. She'd won the battle, but she had a feeling she was about to lose the war.
Alien Romance: The Alien's Pregnant Mate: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 2) Page 6
